The Supreme Court Ripped Apart the Voting Rights Act. Now Southern States are Paying the Price.

Last year, the Supreme Court, eviscerated the Voting Rights Act of 1965 at the direction of GOP poster-boy Justice, John Roberts. The court voted to remove protections that had previously required states that had shown a precedence for discriminatory voting practices to be reviewed and have any changes to their voting registration and voting methods approved by federal oversight.

Since the Court struck down those provisions, GOP states have been crawling all over themselves to enact laws that would have otherwise been prevented under the act.

According to a report from Mother Jones, 15 states have, since the destruction of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, passed laws to restrict voting rights.

We looked at how many of these 15 states passed or implemented voting restrictions after Section 5 was invalidated, compared to the states that were not covered by the law. (We defined “voting restriction” as passing or implementing a voter ID law, cutting voting hours, purging voter rolls, or ending same-day registration. Advocates criticize these kinds of laws for discriminating against low-income voters, young people, and minorities, who tend to vote Democrat.) We found that 8 out of the 15 states, 53 percent, passed or implemented voting restrictions since June 25, compared to 3 out of 35 states that were not covered under Section 5—or less than 9 percent. Additionally, a number of states not covered by the Voting Rights Act actually expanded voting rights in the same time period. (emphasis added)

The case responsible is Shelby County v. Holder. In this case, the Court removed Section 4 of the Voting Rights Act. Section 4 established which states, counties and towns were subject to the Voting Rights Act.

Justice Robert, arguing to do away with the Act, argued that we are living in a different country than we were at the time of the laws passage. If these latest actions have shown us anything, it’s that not only is Justice Robert’s wrong, but we still have a very long way to go.

Joshua is a writer and researcher with Ring of Fire. You can follow him on Twitter @Joshual33.